A few weeks ago, the James Webb telescopethe most advanced and innovative of those we have launched into space, brought us a series of impressive images of distant planets, galaxies and stars with great precision. The astronomer continues to study the universe with the most powerful toolsoffering us a detailed and fascinating image of the firmament and its celestial bodies, with more and more quality. In this area, the French physicist Etienne Klein has messed it up on Twitter these days, uploading a photo of a slice of sausage and passing it off as a star. Yes, as you are reading.
Prxima Centauri or slice of Revilla chorizo?
Klein, innocent of him, shared an image of the slice of chorizo on his Twitter profiler, accompanying it with a text in which I tried to provide a bit of context. “Picture of next centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us. It was taken over by the JWST. what level of details… A new world is revealed day after day,” he explained. However, and as many realized, it was a slice of sausage. Just like that. Klein did not notice the assumption error until after a while, when a good stir was formed in the social network of the blue birdand I did not hesitate to apologize and explain that, indeed, had been wrong. Between quotation marks, as we will see later.
Photo of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, located 4.2 light years from us.
She was taken by the JWST.
This level of detail A new world is revealed day after day. pic.twitter.com/88UBbHDQ7ZEtienne KLEIN (@EtienneKlein) July 31, 2022
“As well, at snack time, cognitive biases seem to have their day off So be careful with them. According to contemporary cosmology, no object belonging to the spanish charcuterie it exists only on Earth”, he remarked between laughter and joke. Later, and before the gigantic avalanche of people who continued to correct the error, he was forced to republish everything and explain in a third tweet that everything had been an experiment to have a good time and see how far what was obviously a false image would go.
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The scientist has claimed that it was all an experiment or social joke: he had to apologize several times
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“In view of some comments, I feel compelled to clarify that this tweet showing an alleged snapshot of Proxima Centauri was a form of diversion. Let us learn to distrust both the arguments of authority and the eloquence of certain images”, he concluded. The French scientist, later, explained how he had done it all consciously and deliberately, trying to see how far the hoax spread and how it ended up in headlines and forums or social networks. What this astrophysicist did not count on was the Spaniards, who were able to identify the slice of cold meat because the joke had already been made previously in one of the multiple eclipses and with a piece of mortadella.
“I come to present my apologies to those whom my hoax, which has nothing original, could have scandalized. I simply wanted to urge caution with images that seem eloquent on their own. a scientist’s joke“, he concludes. Reality or cable collection?
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